


The Sound of Silence

by KouriArashi



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, M/M, Pack Feels, Short, but then it gets better, right in the feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-14
Updated: 2013-04-14
Packaged: 2017-12-08 12:27:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/761304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KouriArashi/pseuds/KouriArashi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek has never said 'I love you' to Stiles, because 'I love you' is a curse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sound of Silence

**Author's Note:**

> In which Derek and Stiles are mates, and Derek isn't good at talking about stuff.
> 
> Can be read as a part of my larger universe but also can be read as a stand-alone fic.

 

Derek has never said ‘I love you’ to Stiles.

Honestly, he’s never even really thought about it. Actions speak louder than words, anyway. He loves Stiles, Stiles knows that, so there’s no reason that they have to start saying things to each other that might make things awkward and uncomfortable. Their relationship is more than that anyway, something that could never be put into human words. It’s love, it’s partnership, it’s brotherhood, it’s being two halves to the same whole which is infinitely greater than the sum of its parts.

So he’s never thought about saying it, and whether Stiles has thought about saying it, he really has no idea and doesn’t care. Their relationship isn’t any ‘less’ for the fact that they don’t say ‘I love you’ to each other. It’s just not something they do.

Or at least that’s what Derek thinks about it, when he thinks about it at all – he does, sometimes, because Scott and Allison say it about eight times a day, and once they were watching some TV show where one of the characters is angsting about the fact that her significant other has never said it, which prompts some real eye-rolling from Stiles – until one time, late at night, he’s proven completely wrong.

It’s one of those bad nights, where Stiles has been restless and unable to sleep, as he is so often, and his shifting and kicking has kept Derek awake. Stiles feels bad about that sometimes, but he knows that Derek infinitely prefers not being alone at night, and that putting up with Stiles’ fidgets is a small price to pay. Derek has tried to soothe him into sleep a couple times, rubbing his back or smoothing down his hair, and Stiles will close his eyes and relax for a few minutes before he gets twitchy again.

Derek is lying on his back in his human form – he often sleeps as a wolf, but not always, sometimes it just feels good to stretch out all the way so his toes are hanging off the edge of the bed – and Stiles is on his side facing Derek, for the moment at least. And then Stiles says, “Derek . . .?” His voice is soft and hushed, and when Derek turns his face to one side to look at him and makes a questioning noise, Stiles says, “I – ”

And then Derek knows. He’s going to say it. He’s actually going to say it, the words they’ve never before spoken, and terror seizes him, stark, black terror. ‘I love you’ is what his mother said as she kissed him on the forehead and then gave him a playful little push as he headed into the dormitory where he would be staying. ‘I love you’ was the last thing she ever said to him.

‘I love you’ is something he said to Kate on their last meeting when he was fifteen, and ‘Aww, honey, I love you too’ is something she said in return as she gave him that smile that was somehow kind and sweet and now that he’s no longer fifteen, when he closes his eyes and pictures that smile, he can see the mocking underneath. ‘I love you’ is what he said to Kate before she killed his family and shattered his world.

‘I love you’ is what he wouldn’t say to Laura after that, ever, because the words were cursed, so obviously cursed, until she left to investigate what was going on in Beacon Hills, and she said ‘I love you’ on the way out the door, and he couldn’t respond, couldn’t answer that, and then he felt guilty so he texted her, ‘I love you too’. He doesn’t even know if she ever saw that text, because then she was dead and he never got a chance to ask her and her phone wasn’t with her body and there’s no way to know.

‘I love you’ is a curse, his curse, because Derek knows that loving him is a path filled with darkness and blood and death. He’s okay loving Stiles, but they can never _say_ it, never _talk_ about it, or the curse will strike down Stiles as surely as it has cut down everyone else he’s ever cared about.

So without even thinking, he rolls over and slaps a hand over Stiles’ mouth before another syllable can leave it. “Don’t,” he says, his voice cracking. “Don’t _ever_. Don’t you _ever_ say it. You can’t. You _can’t_.”

Stiles stares at him, his eyes wide with surprise and confusion which slowly turns into comprehension, which in turn leads to pain, and Derek knows that Stiles understands why he can never say those words. Derek sees that grief and carefully tamped down rage and he knows that Stiles would go back in time and kill Kate Argent a hundred times for making those words something to be feared instead of treasured.

Then Stiles reaches up and gently removes Derek’s hand from his mouth. “Derek,” he says slowly, carefully, “I was just going to say ‘I’m going to get up and make myself some tea’. Do you want to come with me?”

All the breath rushes out of Derek, and he curls around Stiles, not able to speak for a long minute. Stiles just holds him, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck, listening to those soft, keening noises that Derek makes when the loss of his family hits him _so_ hard. It’s usually after he dreams about them, but not always. Sometimes it’s just the smell of a certain perfume or a woman who looks like his mother, it can be any of a dozen things and suddenly he’s fifteen and an orphan again.

When he recovers, he wipes a hand over his eyes and says, “Yeah, tea . . . tea might be good.”

Stiles swings his legs over the side of the bed and they head downstairs. Derek sits in silence at the kitchen table while Stiles heats up some water and fills two of his little teaspoons with green tea, because it’s late and they shouldn’t have caffeine. “I don’t think I’m going to sleep tonight,” he finally says. “How about some Scrabble?”

What Stiles really means is ‘neither of us want to know what nightmares are going to follow what just happened’, and he’s one hundred percent correct, so Derek agrees. He gets out the Scrabble board and Stiles finishes making the tea and gets out what’s left of the cookies he made earlier that day, and the two of them sit down and play the game.

Stiles starts to fall asleep after a while despite his best efforts, but he keeps playing, and Derek lets him misspell or outright invent words because he doesn’t care about the game, he cares about not sleeping, and they stay up until four AM, when Stiles finally passes out. Derek carries him back upstairs and puts him on the bed. He stirs but doesn’t wake.

They don’t talk about it the next morning, which Derek is grateful for. He doesn’t want things to become awkward, doesn’t want this to be a _problem_. He loves Stiles, Stiles knows that. They just can’t talk about it.

So he watches the others, watches Allison say ‘I love you’ instead of hello and Scott say ‘I love you’ instead of goodbye. He watches Stiles say it to his father whenever he leaves for work because being the sheriff in a small town isn’t _really_ dangerous, but it _could_ be. He watches Sheriff Stilinski say ‘love you too, kid’ whenever Stiles says it, no matter what the circumstances are or who else can see them.

He watches the pack say it to each other, sometimes seriously, sometimes in jest. A laughing ‘oh my God, I love you!’ from Erica to Lydia when the redhead does something fantastic to Erica’s hair. ‘I love you, bro, you’re the best’ from Boyd to Isaac when they team up on Scott and take him down during a pick-up lacrosse game. ‘That’s awesome, I love you!’ from Scott to Erica when she teaches him a quick cheat on their Spanish homework.

They all love each other, and none of them has the slightest fear about saying it. None of them except Derek. But he doesn’t need to say it. He loves Stiles. Stiles knows that. And he knows that Stiles loves him. Stiles doesn’t need to say it, either.

Several months go by before he realizes that Stiles says it to him every day.

When Derek is grumbling over the fact that Stiles has been researching obscure eighties rock bands and playing their music for four hours, and Stiles laughs and says, “You know you like it when I do this shit,” what Stiles is saying is ‘I love you’.

When they’re up late at night watching old black and white movies and Derek comments that he’s glad someone’s willing to watch this stuff with him because the rest of the pack thinks it’s stupid, and Stiles says, “I enjoy doing this stuff with you”, what Stiles is saying is ‘I love you’.

When Stiles says something particularly stupid and Derek just does that _thing_ with his eyebrows that Stiles calls his ‘eyebrows of judginess’, and Stiles says solemnly, “I treasure these moments together”, what Stiles is saying is ‘I love you’.

When Stiles shows up at Derek’s studio in the middle of the day on a Tuesday with a plate full of gingersnaps and says, “I know you said you were having artist’s block so I brought you some inspirational cookies!” what Stiles is saying is ‘I love you’.

So then one night when Stiles is lying on his back on his bed with his feet propped up against the wall, his laptop balanced on his stomach while he types away, and Derek is sitting at his desk, sketching, Stiles says, “Oh, hey, check this out!” and swivels the laptop around so Derek can see some stupidly cute .gif of a cat falling over.

“You’re an idiot,” Derek informs him.

“You wouldn’t know what to do without me,” Stiles says cheerfully.

And without even realizing he’s going to do it, without even thinking long enough to be afraid, Derek looks at him and says, “I love you.”

And Stiles glances over at him, but he doesn’t say ‘holy crap’ or ‘took you long enough’ or anything like that. He just smiles and says, “I love you too,” and then he rolls to his feet so he can give Derek a kiss on the forehead. Then he flops back down and begins chortling at some new .gif and it’s like the whole exchange never happened.

The next day, Derek won’t let Stiles out of his sight. Every time he does, he feels an icy cold hand clench down around his stomach, the certainty that it’s over now, he’s said the words, the curse is coming for them. Except that’s stupid, because if ‘I love you’ was going to be their last words to each other, Stiles screwed that pooch forty-five seconds later when he said, “Holy crap, check this out!” and flailed at Derek until he came over to see some picture from the new Iron Man movie that’s coming out soon, and then they had a conversation about how Robert Downey Junior is the most awesome person in the universe, and then Stiles had to spend almost two hours telling him about all the different Marvel universes. Derek happily listened to the entire thing despite the fact that he couldn’t possibly have cared less, because he was so happy that nothing had changed with his words.

But logic knows nothing in the face of unremitting terror, and so Stiles doesn’t say a word while Derek stalks him all day and won’t let him further away than four feet when the pack meets in the woods to run around and play silly wolf games. Stiles doesn’t say a word when Derek won’t let him drive anywhere. Stiles doesn’t say a word when Derek hovers by him anxiously as he visits his dad at the station to bring him an extremely healthy turkey sandwich and carrot sticks for lunch.

It’s just a normal day. Nothing happens that’s out of the ordinary or frightening in the least. The pack sits around in the evening and plays video games and Stiles makes dinner and they all fall asleep in a pile in the living room, as they’re wont to do now that there’s too many of them to all fit in one bed. Stiles is lying curled up between Erica and Lydia, and Derek watches him sleep, watches him breathe. He worms his way in between Stiles and Lydia so he can rest his head on Stiles’ shoulder, feel the warmth of his body and the steady rise and fall of his chest.

The next morning, nothing has changed except that Stiles will now say ‘I love you’ to Derek just as easily as he says it to his father, and the pack will say it too, and so will Derek. He loves Stiles; Stiles knows that. So why wouldn’t he be able to say it?

They all love each other, and Derek isn’t afraid of the words anymore.

 

 


End file.
